A Gathering of Pipes and Men: Difference between revisions

There are warriors from different ages. No weapons are allowed. Norsemen and Knights of the round table attend. Barbarians from the east. Mongolians who rode on small ponies. British red shirts in battle dress. Romans, centurions and legates are represented. There are French cavaliers and exhausted troops from the American civil war, one from the south and one from union’s army.  Looking at the ground and holding walking staffs are farmers and an American Indian crouching.  Wild Bill Hickok stands, missing his beloved springfield trapdoor rifle, left at the door.  He is the latest addition to the group, traveling from the United Kingdom. No one has offered an explanation as to how he crossed the western ocean and the English channel.  

Here is Tuck of Robin's band, a cardinal in ceremonial dress with goatee and tonsure, fresh from obeisance to the pope,  a pipe smoking Irish man with Latakia tobacco in the bowl, dirt on his hands and wild hair. There are bearded Arabs, thin nubians with clean chins, sailors with bowed legs and traders who clutch  bills of lading.  An Empress Dowager and a Pathan who watched Alexander’s elephants stands alone, looking at the Sibillini mountains through glazed windows. He may be thinking of the Northwest Frontier, green valleys and the rocky mounts through which the British fled.

There is no agenda at these meetings, secretaries, votes take or conclusions reached. Subjects are not declined or prohibited.  Each pipe may speak or be silent in with courtesy and temperament, understanding they will meet again. All wish to be on good terms. Though of different shades of skin, appearance and language, there is no discrimination and none are superior to the other. As men they were buried in elaborate caskets of polished walnut and labeled brass or left on the ground for scavenging animals. They fell to disease, age or sword; they now share what passes for Eternity.  They look as they did in their strength, the way they wished to be seen, known, remembered. They are locked into their age.

The talk goes back and forth without rancor. The pipes are pleased to be present and have moments to see swallows swoop through the sky, feel the freshness of air, taste the scented sweetness of flowers that come into the centro from the mountains, funneled through the narrow pathways. They talk of meerschaums known and honored, broken or lost, of time's fluid shape, their affection for this village between the sea and mountains. They are content and will remain here in silent purpose.